


Lucky Number 3

by krazieLeylines



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Child Neglect, Drugs, Genderfluid Character, Homophobia, Human trolls have human names, Humanstuck, I'm not sure yet, Love Triangles, Minor Character Death, Multi, Polyamory, Queerphobia, Romantic Comedy, Secret Relationship, Sorry if you don't like that, Threesome - F/M/M, like karkat's name is karter, may be mentions of the following:, there may be sexual content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 04:43:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2054085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krazieLeylines/pseuds/krazieLeylines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karter Vantas had always been so sure that soulmates came in pairs of two. Surely, his other half had to be Gavin Makara, his childhood best friend. They were obviously meant to be, the same way that Karter's old brother Kevin was meant to be with Rimma, his high school sweetheart and wife-to-be. That's what he wrote in his best man's speech six months ago, anyway.</p><p>And then Jade Harley, John's exotic, intelligent, personable cousin moved into town, and beyond rewriting his speech, Karter now has a secret he has to keep until the end of the wedding, or risk ruining his brother's special day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucky Number 3

**Author's Note:**

  * For [viksherenqueer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/viksherenqueer/gifts).



> Humanstuck names reference:
> 
> KARKAT: Karter/17/white/ginger/pale skin/freckled/brown eyes  
> GAMZEE: Gavin/18/mixed Romani/Indian and African American/dark curls/dark skin/brown puppy eyes  
> KANKRI: Kevin/20/white/dark auburn hair/pale skin/brown eyes  
> PORRIM: Rimma/20/mixed Arabic ancestry/still tattooed and pierced/blue-black hair/dark green eyes  
> KANAYA: Kayanna/17/mixed Arabic ancestry/wears a hijab/blue-black hair/jade green eyes  
> TEREZI: Teresa/17/African American/black Afro-textured hair/medium brown skin/blind pale blue eyes  
> SOLLUX: Xander/18/white/white-blonde hair/pale skin/light blue+brown heterochromia eyes  
> ERIDAN: "Danny" Daniel/17/Greek ancestry/dark Mediterranean curls/olive skin/navy blue eyes

It was a love story straight out of a Nicholas Sparks book. Karter Vantas was almost (okay, _definitely_ ) jealous when after three years of dating, his older brother Kevin proposed to his high school sweetheart Rimma, who quite literally was the girl living next door. A lot of people tried to convince them they were too young, Rimma’s worrisome mother especially, since they were just nineteen and freshly graduated. And yet despite all the critiques, here Karter was, eleven and a half months later and a week away from the wedding, trying to find the best man speech he wrote a while back. 

“I know I stored this damn thing someplace where I’d remember it,” Karter growled out loud, trying to hold back a sneeze as he swept his arm under his bed again, hoping to touch the corner of a box. 

“Ain’t that how it always goes?” Dave, Karter’s best friend, snickered, obviously enjoying Karter’s distress and not even bothering to lift a finger from where he leaned against the open door. “That’s why I have Teresa store all my important shit; she has a memory of a goddamn elephant.” The shaded albino toolbag Karter called his bro took a long pause in thought. “Wait… elephants have good memories, right? Or is that saying just sort of ironic?”

Another swoop under the bed proved to be just as fruitless as all the others. Karter sucked in a breath, loud and slow. “Dave, I literally don’t give a shit about elephants and their proverbial memories right now. I lost my best man speech. Kevin is going to murder me.”

Dave continued to be unhelpful as Karter pulled himself out, got himself on his feet, and dusted the cobwebs out of his hair. “Dude,” Dave deadpanned, “Just write a new one.”

“Yeah, I’ll just write a _whole fucking new_ best man’s speech a week before the wedding,” Karter snarked unpleasantly. He gathered his cell from his bedside table, trying to figure out someone who might have an idea as to where he hid it. “Dave, the last one took me a month to get down perfect. I put a bunch of research into that bitch, okay. Stocked it full of references to myths and old ass stories from Shakespeare’s era and other nerd-ass shit Kevin would like. He wants the perfect wedding, and I’m not about to disappoint and ruin it all with some second-rate, improvised spiel.” _Jade_ , Karter thought mid-rant, _Jade will know where I hid the damn thing_.

CG: JADE, ANY CLUES TO WHERE I PUT MY BEST MAN SPEECH?  
GG: ummm i didnt even know you wrote one already sorry :(  
CG: OKAY, OKAY, YEAH.  
CG: I FORGOT, I DIDN’T EVEN MEET YOU UNTIL AFTER I WROTE THE DAMN THING. OKAY, WELL.  
CG: ANY CLUE AS TO WHERE I *MIGHT* HAVE STORED IT, IF I CONSIDERED IT TO BE OF TOP-NOTCH FUCKING IMPORTANCE? I JUST CHECKED UNDER MY BED, BUT NO SUCH LUCK.   
CG: OBVIOUSLY.  
GG: sorry karter  
GG: i dont usually memorize microscopic details about people like that  
GG: you should ask rose  
GG: or gavin hes like an encyclopedia of random karter trivia  
GG: its kind of weird sometimes :p  
CG: OKAY, YEAH. THANKS.   
GG: good luck!  
GG: <3  
CG: <3

Karter glanced up from his cell, noticing Dave was leafing through his DVD collection with a slightly disappointed curve to his usually stoic unsmiling mouth. Karter sneered briefly at his friend’s horrible taste in movies, before texting Gavin.

CG: HEY, GAVIN. ANY IDEA AS TO WHERE I PUT MY BEST MAN SPEECH?  
TC: YoOoOo, My KaR mAn.  
TC: UhHhH, i GoTtA gIvE yOu A nEgAtIvE oN tHaT. yOu WrOtE tHaT a MoThEr FuCk Of A lOnG tImE aGo, YeAh?  
CG: YEAH, LIKE TEN MONTHS AGO, PRACTICALLY.  
CG: I *KNOW* I SHOULD HAVE LET MY MOM STORE IT FOR ME. OH, FUCK INDEPENDENT PHASE SIXTEEN YEAR OLD ME.  
TC: HeHeH, yOuR mOm’S sO cHiLl.  
TC: WaIt, KaRtEr?  
CG: YEAH?  
TC: YoU aIn’T gOnNa BeLiEvE tHiS, bUt I tHiNk I jUsT gOt My ReMeMbErInG oN fOr WhErE yOu WeNt AnD sToReD yOuR sPeEcH.  
CG: NO FUCKING WAY.  
CG: WHERE??  
TC: It’S iN yOuR mArRiAgE bOoK, bRo.  
TC: I rEmEmBeR pEePiNg At ThE sPeEcH lAsT tImE wE gOt To Be BrOwSiNg OvEr ThAt BoOk ToGeThEr.  
CG: OH GOD, YOU’RE RIGHT.  
CG: OH, FUCKING SHIT. I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO EXORCISE THAT DAMN BOOK FROM MY MEMORY LOBE FOR THE PAST FEW MONTHS. IT’S SO EMBARRASSING, GOD. WHY IS EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING I SAY OR WRITE OR DO *SO GODDAMN EMBARRASSING* IN RETROSPECT?  
TC: JuSt HoW tHe WhOlE aGiNg PrOcEsS wOrKs, I sUpPoSe?  
CG: HMMPH, MAYBE.  
CG: ANYWAY, THANKS. I’LL TALK TO YOU TONIGHT.  
TC: LaTeR, mAn!  
TC: <3  
CG: <3

Karter pocketed his phone and went over to the closet, motioning Dave over to help him yank the doors aside far enough for Karter to access the pile of random junk inside. 

“You finally remembered where you put the damn thing?” Dave asked, a slight hint of amazement in his tone.

“Gavin did, believe it or not.” Karter moved his pile of winter clothes aside to get to all the old journals he kept hidden underneath. Some were reserved for stories he wrote, others actually were filled with daily entries of adolescent drama and woe. What Karter was looking for rested at the very bottom of the pile, a plain brown spiral notebook with nothing but a horribly written “KEEP OUT” on the cover. 

“No way, Gavin can’t remember shit,” Dave said, actually putting some effort into helping now as he leaned over to keep the tall stack of folded up sweaters from falling over onto Karter’s head. “What the shit is that, anyway? Oh hey, your old diaries.”

Karter was hoping to get the whole ordeal over with quickly. He was fairly sure, now that Gavin had mentioned it, that he had tucked the speech into the front pocket of the infamous aforementioned “marriage notebook”. All he had to open it quickly, snatch the folded up piece of paper, and return the dreaded journal back to the pile with all the others to continue to rot away in his closet. It would be quick and easy, or would have been, if Dave had not been there.

The marriage notebook was yanked from Karter’s fingers and into the air away from him. “What’s this?” Dave asked, pulling away from Karter’s initial attempts to startle Dave with his desperate cry of “ _NO, SHIT, STOP_ ”, and snatch it back.

Unfortunately, Dave had five inches on Karter, and used all five inches to his advantage as he stretched the book high above his face, reading the text on a random page upside down.

“Strider, don’t you _dare_ \--”

“Acceptable honeymoon locations: One: Harbour Island, the Bahamas, Two: Santorini, Greece, Three: Puerto Vallarta, Mexi… dude, there’s no fucking way Kevin would be able to afford to travel to _any_ of these locations, nor would he dream on spending so much cash on a vacation where he’ll be doing nothing more than indulging in some legitimized post-marital fucking. Besides, I thought they agreed on just renting a place in Sans Francisco for some vegan hipster-flavored debauchery.”

“Oh, just shut the fuck up,” Karter demanded with enflamed cheeks, still jumping to grab back his book as Dave flipped to another page.

“Possible color combinations,” Dave read on relentlessly, “One: royal purple and lavender pink, Two: chartreuse green and pearl off-white, Three: scarlet red and… Wait, whoa.” Karter knew by the look on Dave’s face that he had figured it out. “Not even Kevin is this pretentious about color names. Karter, these are plans for _your own_ wedding, aren’t they?”

Karter managed to get Dave cornered against the wall, but his short stature continued to keep him at a disadvantage as Dave just idly perused through the notebook like he owned the damn thing.

“Okay, damn, this should be a good one.” Dave’s torture continued as he switched to another page, keeping Karkat at bay with a lifted knee against his gut. “A list of possible best men. Gavin at the top, ouch buddy. Except his name got crossed off somehow, damn you guys must have gotten into a spat, that’s rough. Xander is next, then John… Damn, even Danny and Kayanna are ahead of me. Where the fuck am I on this list?”

Seeing an opening, Karter dove for Dave’s armpit, pinching down hard on the skin until he dropped the book down to the floor in pained reflex. “Shit, dude!”

“Dave, man,” Karter said, “we weren’t friends yet when I wrote this, okay? If I recall correctly, this was around the time I found you playing fucking tonsil hockey with my then girlfriend, Teresa. I hated your two-timing douche guts, remember?”

Karter stomped down on the notebook, inches away from Dave’s fingers, as he took a second dive for it. Dave held up his hands in a silent surrender, chuckling a bit. Satisfied, Karter gathered up the book, took out the folded up speech just where he remembered placing it, and tossed it back into the closet.

“And Teresa wasn’t your official girlfriend, wingnut,” Dave pointed out affectionately, “Neither of you had used the ‘steady’ word yet. By the rules of sophomore logic, that meant she was fair game.”

“Ehh, fair enough.”

The two friends plopped down heavily onto Karter’s bed to look over the speech together. Of course the entire thing was new to Dave, but to Karter, it all came rushing back as he started on the first sentence. A sinking chill set at the base of his spine.

Despite this, Karter decided to read on. And read on he did, all down the page and to where the speech ended halfway through on the back of the other side. And it just confirmed his fears.

“Fuck, I can’t read this.”

Dave glanced up over the top of his shades, his pale red eyes glistening with obvious disagreement. “What, why?” He took it out of Karter’s hands, motioning to it like it was a work of art at a museum he was touring. “Dude, this speech is pretty sick. It makes me want to go randomly buy some flowers on the way home for Teresa, even though it’s not our anniversary or her birthday or _anything_.”

“No, shit, it’s so inappropriate.”

“There’s like one sex joke in there, dude.”

The gears in Karter’s head whirred fast as his head as he shook it in an undeniable ‘no’. “I mean, it’s no longer applicable. It’s going to make me sound like a fucking hypocrite, that’s what.”

Dave clearly wasn’t following, and Karter didn’t expect him to. Before he could voice his confusion, Karter beat him to the punch.

“I have a secret, and if I tell you, you can’t tell _anyone_.”

There was no answer from Dave at first. Karter’s outburst had clearly startled him, enough to break through his thin coolkid façade. Dave didn’t even bother to raise an eyebrow in supposed detached amusement. Finally, Dave gave a half-shouldered shrug.

“Obviously I’m not going to spill the beans to anyone, Karter. Let me guess: you fell in love with a guy.”

It was Karter’s turn to be caught off guard. “What?”

Dave’s easygoing half-grin returned. “It wasn’t hard to guess at, dude. I think it was six or seven months back… you started limping ‘round from chair to chair during school. Either you started experimenting with anal toys, or you started sexing it up with a man. No judgments either way, obviously.”

A pause, and then Karter confessed. “Gavin and I will have been dating for a year now, since last Tuesday. That’s why we snuck off, to have dinner and a movie marathon at his place.” 

“Gavin, seriously? Man, I should have known. Wait, wait, you said… a whole year?” Dave wasn’t stupid; he could do the math in his head. “That’s before Kevin proposed to Rimma, though. If you’re not cringing at the blatant heteronormativity in your speech, then what the hell is wrong with it?”

Karter took a deep breath. This was going to be the hard part to explain. “I’m not dating… _just_ Gavin.”

Yep, that sure was a long awkward silence they were experiencing.

“And you were just busting _my balls_ for tonsil hockeying Teresa?” Dave said in all his disbelief, “Dude, that is so messed up. I don’t even really like Gavin, no offense; he’s a creep to my girl. But he still deserves better than th-”

“Calm your tits,” Karter interrupted, “Dave, Gavin _knows_. I wouldn’t do that shit to him, you know me better than that. I’m… in a polyamorous relationship.” Before Dave could ask any questions, Karter went on. “In this speech, I talk about soulmates, and finding your _one_ true love. But I don’t think I have one. I mean, don’t fucking misunderstand me, I think Gavin and I were serendipitously meant to spend our lives together, as friends _and_ as lovers, but…”

Dave was a good bro. “He’s not the only one you feel that way about,” Dave guessed, “Who’s soulmate numero dos?”

“Okay, firstly: ew. Secondly…” Karter took a deep breath. He knew how strongly Dave felt about her. “Things got rocky between Gavin and me when Jade moved here. We couldn’t deny the chemistry between us. The thing is, I feel so differently for both of them. Jade makes me feel heated and flustered, and I can’t remember Gavin ever having that effect on me. Gavin makes me feel… serene. Kind of bubbly and dreamlike, I guess. Jade is so real, I feel sharper, stronger, _more alive_ around her. I don’t know if I sound fucking dumb as hell, but… I can’t choose between them.”

Dave offered Karter a supportive hand to his shoulder. “Hell yeah, you sound dumb. You sound like a lovestruck dumbass. But it’s okay, I’m still a stellar no-judgment zone. Frankly, I’m offended that I’m just hearing about this.”

Right, that. Karter put a hand to the side of his neck, choosing his words. “You know what a homophobic dickwad Gavin’s father is. Gavin wanted to keep it quiet, just in case word got around. And then Jade came into the picture, not even a month later… shit got complicated. It was an experimental thing for all of us. We didn’t know fuck all about polyamory, and we didn’t need the added pressure of the disapproval of our friends and family as we tried to make it work.”

“Understandable.” Dave’s hand didn’t move, and Karter was glad that he befriended the Strider, as infuriating as he could be sometimes. 

They sat in the comfortable sort of silence of two chill bros for a full minute or two, before Dave turned his head just so slightly to catch Karter’s attention.

“Any idea when you’ll all come out?”

“We don’t want to distract from the wedding,” Karter informed Dave, “Kevin and Rimma have been so fucking stressed, I swear they’ve almost called off the wedding four or… five times by now. There’s absolutely no way we can drop this bomb on everyone now. As soon as Kevin and Rimma take off in their van to San Francisco, then we’ll tell everyone.”

Dave gave a slight tilt of his head in what he thought looked like a cool version of a nod, and shared a soft fist bunp with Karter. “Sounds like a solid plan to me.”


End file.
